Sean Scully: Nature Never Sleeps

For Autumn 2027, Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery will present an exhibition of large-scale paintings, works on paper, writing and sculpture by the celebrated artist Sean Scully (b. 1945). The Irish-born, New York-based multidisciplinary artist is primarily known for his expressive abstract paintings consisting of layered stripes, blocks and shifting fields of colour, although in recent years he has returned to figurative art and nature. The inspiration behind this can be traced back to his studio in the village of Tappan, New York state, as Scully explains: “When I bought my studio, the building flooded every winter: which is why nobody wanted it. In front of it, was a car park for 67 cars. And when it rained the water was stranded, looking for a useful home. I ripped up the car park. The water went into the ground. The plants grew. The animals came back. The birds on their way to and from Old Mexico, stop off. Sing us a song and fly away. Now we have a pond full of frogs, and 600 trees.” At the heart of the exhibition will be works from his Tree of Life (2026) series, which exemplifies Scully’s new strand of figurative work responding to trees, cacti and the natural world, made at a time when the effects of climate change have become increasingly pronounced and severe. Other paintings to feature in the exhibition include his Madonna Triptych (2018/2019), which signified Scully’s return to figuration after a five-decade hiatus. One of the two central figures in the series is Scully’s son, Oisin, who was ten when the paintings were made. At the time, Scully observed: “Because I’m so nuts about my son, I wanted to paint pictures of a child in an eternal place, representing all children.” The ‘place’ he referred to is a beach on the island of Eleuthera, in the Bahamas. Watching Oisin play with his mother on the sand inspired Scully’s three vibrantly coloured oil paintings. “I used to be a very intense portraitist, so it was easy for me to make these,” he said in 2019. Enquiries +44 (0) 20 3985 8888, [email protected]